This invention relates generally to a sorting system and more particularly to a color sorting system for sorting produce including means for rejecting foreign objects.
An example of the usefulness of the present invention is in the handling and processing of the tomatoes. Such processing and handling in the field requires that millions of tomatoes be individually inspected and that culls, spoiled and green tomatoes, and foreign objects, such as dirt and the like, be removed. To perform this task manually is laborious and expensive.
To overcome this problem automatic tomato sorters have recently become available. Normally such sorters are constructed so that they can be used in conjunction with automatic tomato harvesting equipment such as, for example equipment of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,193,020 and 3,390,768. Tomato harvesters of this type are driven through the tomato fields removing tomatoes from the vines and depositing them on one or more tomatoe collection belts. The belts transport the tomatoes to a loading conveyor which discharges the tomatoes into trucks or the like along side of the harvester. The sorting equipment is positioned so that it views the tomatoes and objects as they are transported or conveyed to the trucks. The tomatoes on a conveyor belt are arranged in a multiplicity of parallel rows and individually viewed by the sorting equipment. If a tomato is determined to be a cull, for example, unexceptably green, a reject mechanism is energized which removes the tomato from the flow. Normally the tomato discharges onto the ground. The remaining tomatoes continue their normal course towards the discharge point. Such apparatus operates on the basis of color signals obtained by generating color signals at two wavelengths. In one type of such equipment the signals at the two wavelengths are compared and when one has a predetermined relationship to the other the tomatoes are rejected. However, such reject systems have not rejected foreign objects such as dirt and debris, from the stream. It is therefore desirable to provide equipment which is capable of rejecting foreign objects such as dirt, stems, and debris.